Beneficiated coals' char morphology

Abstract

This work evaluated the char morphology of beneficiated and original coal (without beneficiation) from four Colombian coalmines: Cerrejón (La Guajira), La Jagua (Cesar), Guachinte (Valle del Cauca) and Nechí (Antioquia). Column flotation was used to obtain beneficiated coal, whereas a drop tube reactor at 1,000°C, 104 °C/s heating rate and 100 ms residence time was used to obtain char. The chars were analysed by image analysis which determined their shape, size, porosity and wall thickness. It was found that char morphology depended on coal rank and maceral composition. Morphological characteristics like high porosity, thinner walls and network-like morphology which are beneficial in improving combustion were present in vitrinite- and liptinite-rich lowest-ranking coals. Beneficiated coals showed that their chars had better performance regarding their morphological characteristics than their original coal chars.